Recently in the Chinese press a story appeared about these two little “trash or treasure” stores in Sai Ying Pun. With the new subway station there about to open, the storeholders can no longer afford the rent. The shops will close down and doubtless morph into 7-11s or “bonjour” pharmacies, a kind of bellweather to the marching winds of gentrification.

So it was a good time this weekend to stop by to check out the wares of their going-out-of-business sales: three penis wine, made from the organs of three different beasts, vinyl records from the 1980s (Ghostbusters, Akina Nakimori) , a microscope and endless piles of dusty Chinese scrolls.

I loved Birdman and Boyhood was diverting, but the best movie of the year for me has been ‘Blind Massage’. This Chinese movie – about the love lives of a group of blind people in Nanjing – came out of nowhere and blew me away. I was expecting a sentimental weepie (and the mediocre trailers make it look like one) but don’t be fooled – this is a full-blooded film of masterful and sometimes jolting gear shifts between the heartwarming and the heartbreaking, the harrowing and even trippily psychedelic.

Its also a sometimes confronting insight into the lives of the blind.

In one scene a girl nags her boyfriend to tell her she is pretty. Finally he relents and says “you are as pretty as…stewed pork.” I guess for someone with the senses of smell and taste but not sight, pork could well be the epitome of beauty.